30

^{Photo by Amy Shamblen on Unsplash}

And I lived another year
Big questions in life, I still bear
Why the fuck am I here?
Am I fated to make a mark
And show the world my spark
Or it’s really up to me
To live my life
The way I wanted it to be?

And I lived another year
Life still bothers me, I swear
Do I live selfishly
Or live for those I love and know
Should I help make this world a better place
Or am I just taking life, the world
And myself seriously
While nothing and no one cares anyway

And I lived another year
A chance that’s always considered rare
Must I carry on, following my bliss?
Or be useful and inspire others, at least
How to live life fully
Who has the final say?
Is it them? Is it you? Is it me?
Ah life, is still a puzzle to me at 30

Things I Wish I Knew Before I Turned 30

^{Photo by Cody Black on Unsplash}

Last month marked my 30th year of existence in this world. I am so grateful for reaching this far. As I turn a year older, I also hope I am a year wiser. And so here I am collating the truths and lessons that life presented to me so far:

1. My parents are just like everyone else in this world, trying to navigate life the best way they could. I could have shortened the days I resented them.

2. Friends are not for me to keep. They stay of their own accord. I could have stopped chasing some of them profusely.

3. The way I will relate to people and the world will be mostly shaped by how I was raised and what my experiences are in my formative years. I should have taken more time to understand and process my childhood experience better.

4. I’ll have at least one indelible bully. I could have been more emotionally prepared. 

5. My first crush will introduce me to the indescribable and hard-to-control manipulation of my hormones. I should have savored fully and familiarized myself with the feelings the person brought me.

6. I’d do things out of societal, parental or peer pressure and I’d beat myself up for it. But I’ll realize I will eventually stop or at least care less about what others think. I should have been kinder to myself.

7. I’d enjoy types of music I’ll be ashamed of later on in life. But I’ll realize regardless of how bad they were, they’re my only ticket to revisiting some ol’ good memories. I could have been more appreciative of them.

8. I’ll have at least one teacher who’ll inspire me to succeed in life and have a good impact on others. I could have held unto that inspiration tightly as I navigate life.

9. There will be people who will intently or unknowingly erode my self-confidence. I could have been more discerning who to avoid and who to forgive.

10. I don’t have enemies. But there will be people who will feel small or threatened with my presence. There are people who have been hurt too and want to inflict it on anyone they’ll encounter in life. I could have understood these people better.

11. Life can be so unpredictable and experiences so random that I’ll end up deciding to drop the could-haves and should-haves along the way and just deal with life the best way I think I could. 

12. I’ll go about this life being hopelessly romantic. Heartbreaks and heartaches will continuously help me decide if it’s worth it. 

13. Love is nothing but a word. I’d associate it with all the romantic themes and parts of movies I grow up watching or have watched. At some point in my life, I’d think I’ve found it or I will find it. But the truth is, it would only exist for as long as I am associating it with something ( a feeling, gesture etc).

14. Relationships I’ll commit to or ditch will bring color (harmonious or chaotic) into my arbitrary and innately boring life. 

15. I’ll have at least one song that I won’t mind playing on repeat for the whole day.

16. There would be times I’ll care less, hate or be annoyed with my friends. And it’s totally normal.

17. I’ll have my turn of getting overly jealous or insecure and do/feel things I’d never imagine I’m capable of. Judge others lightly.

18. Once I’ll lose someone who means a lot to me or is on the verge of experiencing so, I’ll start to feel my mortality on a visceral level. I won’t be ready for it.

19. I would have episodes of curling up in bed or crying my eyes out because of the existential crisis and horror I will experience and feel. 

20. I will regret not giving the quiet, boring but seemingly kind guy a chance to show interest or ask me out.

21. Because I’m not living in a cave, I’ll have the desire to be known and have the riches, influence and/or adoration associated with it. I’ll show this desire openly, unknowingly or secretly — alternately.

22. I’ll be tempted to think I know better than others or I’ve figured out life or at least some of its secrets. But no, life can be a bitch to me and I’ll start seeing people and life with humility again. 

23. My insecurity in life and with people will only be as low as how far I’ve put people on a pedestal. 

24. I’ll be so broke that I’ll promise to know how to manage my time and money better. I’d be so down and feel like a loser. But if I’ll learn my lesson here, I’ll be in a better place eventually. 

25. There would be things I’d do in life which I could never dare telling my loved ones. 

26. I would end up sharing #25 with total strangers.

27. I would always or perhaps often wish that life would be easier. But when it is so, I would also always or often feel trouble looming around the corner.

28. I’ll try convincing myself to live in the moment or as I planned but I’ll realize that life can be as unruly and as messy as I am when I was a kid.

29. People aren’t necessarily more mature the older they get. They just become more assertive and more self-assured.

30. Think with my gut and don’t lose my sense of wonder.

---

This is me talking to my younger and older self but if you can relate — then feel free to drop your thoughts and feelings about turning 30 too. Or better yet share your own 30 truths and lessons in life and I’d be more than pleased to check how life has been for you. 🙂

Pride

^{Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash}

Up in the clouds you go
Leaving all behind besides your ego
How exalted you feel
Your perception escapes what’s real

Inside a cave you go
Hearing only your voice and it’s echo
How soothed you are
Not hearing other sounds from afar

Down the ocean floor you go
Diving in your own mind from the get-go
How deep you think
In your bias thoughts you’ll sink

Keyboard Warriors

^{Photo by Sergey Zolkin on Unsplash}

As strong as the force they exert in typing
As toxic as the digital mayhem they are creating
Every word typed acts as a stimulating drug
Leaves them disoriented and with a mental fog

Logic is bent to their chosen partiality
Anyone who stands against them has insanity
They lost their path to heroism in the real world
So in the digital space, a bold image they mold

Waitress (2007) : The Movie

I wanted to watch Sara Bareilles’s musical play Waitress but did not have the luck in finding it. I found the movie on which the play was based instead — and I friggin’ love it.

To be honest, I did not have great expectations for it because I initially judged it as another chick flick movie where the woman finds her worth, redemption, or happiness after meeting the man of her dreams.

I wanted to stop watching it for the first few minutes it played but I carried on watching because I was just so bored. What sparked my interest to finish it was when the protagonist Jenna, while pregnant — shared to her friends that motherhood is not for everyone and that she respects the baby and its right to thrive but she just doesn’t have any affection for it. Imagining myself being in her shoes, I think I would feel the same way, and that’s what probably got me.

The movie was about the journey of a skillful pregnant waitress in asserting to people in her life and the world what it is that she truly wants and eventually fulfilling her dream of establishing her own pie shop while making sure she got her baby taken cared of. That’s amidst a very tumultuous relationship she had with her selfish, controlling, and immature husband, her short-lived affair with her doctor, and the inherent challenges she had as a pregnant woman.

I loved this movie because it reminds me of my mom’s story when she was pregnant with me. Well, not all of its parts but just enough to make me relive the stories she told me.

What I like most about the movie is that there’s so much humanness in the roles portrayed in each of the characters such as the following:

A pregnant woman who was scared of having a baby because she knows she and her husband could not provide the baby a safe place and emotional space to live in.

A controlling, selfish, and immature man who was just insecure about losing someone whom he considers his only possession and only love.

A wife who had a long, stable but lifeless marriage and found an adventure in having an affair with her boss, due to the novelty it brings into her life.

 An old man who gives advice to a younger woman to start anew and fulfill her dreams because he did not want her to have the same frustrations and unfulfilled dreams he had.

and so on…

But don’t raise your eyebrows, pretty please.

This is me not saying that I support what the characters in the movie did. This is me acknowledging that what the characters felt and did — do happen in real life. And I like it that the roles portrayed are not far removed from the kind of humans we typically encounter or know about in reality.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching this movie. It made me cry in some of its parts, actually.

As a woman, I just can’t help but feel the frustrations, struggles, fears, and confusion of the main character (Jenna) on a visceral level. It was easy for me to relate and empathize with her. I also love the fact that she was able to reach her dreams in life and seemed fulfilled even without a man on her side.

This might be a very bias review, for all I care.

If you end up watching it or if you had watched it, I would love to hear what you think about it too!

I’m Still Writing

^{Photo by Yannick Pulver on Unsplash}

I have been feeling off lately.

Feeling mentally paralyzed, I would often switch back and forth to my social media accounts, scrolling mindlessly — as if waiting for the elusive muse to stop me and lend me her creativity.

I felt like I ran dry of topics or ideas to write about and I can’t get myself to write coherent and sensible sentences. What’s worse is, I know it’s all in my head because I am not even trying to translate whatever I’m thinking into written words.

I am aware that there’s no such thing as running out of topic to develop yet still I struggle to clear the mental fog that overwhelms my creative journey. Thinking and writing seemed like chores I dreaded doing.

And when I try to just rest and hope that when I wake up, I’ll have a better mindset — I also struggle doing so. Closing my eyes seemed like forcibly shutting down my thoughts and making them feel like I am stripping them of their rights to be heard. Indignant, they would haunt me with their whispers in my head, and often do they win in keeping me up so late at night.

You’re lazy.

You should start writing.

What are you doing?

Get up and just write something.

Why aren’t you writing anything?

and so on…

My mind’s tirades just keep on flowing and emphasizing my unworthiness of the role I’ve decided to take from the cosmic space we’re in — that is, being a writer.

The self-imposed pressure is paralyzing me.

I created an attachment to a role that was not assigned to me, in the first place.

I am not a writer. I have just decided to be one.

And writing this — is me continuously trying to vote for myself to be one.

Two Major Lessons Covid-19 Is Reminding Us Of

^{Photo by Önder Örtel on Unsplash}

By the time news about Covid-19 virus hit the airwaves, I admit I was one of those who took it lightly.

I could not imagine how a minute microorganism could have such a negative impact to us and the society at large, let alone break me down or my plans. My knowledge about pandemic and my naivete failed me.

As of this writing, I have probably seen more posts about people losing a loved one due to Covid-19 than all the years in the last decade combined. And as Covid-19 continuously evolves and gets aggressive in spreading its fatal strain to mankind, I can’t help but wonder if we are trying or we will ever evolve too.

Will the Covid-19 pandemic situation eventually lead us to extinction?

Or will it lead us to evolve after taking heed of the lessons its trying to remind us:

1.That we have finite existence and time is the most important resource we have

More often than not, we become oblivious to the fact that we are all going to die. So we carry on living as if we will never run out of tomorrow. We spend our time going through the motions of life, not using the time we currently have intentionally — to be grateful for simply being alive, to spend time with those who really matter and care for us, to uplift others and help them have a better experience in this life and to follow our curiosity.

We sometimes imprison ourselves with trivialities or memories of slights, failures, mistakes, and hurt we have inflicted to or done unto us. We wallow unto them forgetting that the present is the only time we have and we might not even live it fully, should death come and knock us out or by getting stuck on our past.

Covid-19 grimly magnifies to us our mortality.

We can not just empathize for those who lost a loved one or weep for those who lost their lives in the ongoing Covid-19 battle. We also have to feel it in our bones that — with the arbitrariness of when death can strike us (Covid-related or not), we can also be one of those who now comprised the statistics we dread.

We are all going to die, in one way or another — sooner or later. And so, it might help us to make better use of our time if we ask these questions:

How would we want our and others’ temporary stay in this world to be?

And if we are to die today, can we truly say we are ready?

2.That we are interconnected and we need each other

How the Covid-19 virus spreads faster than what we can handle — should also remind us to make an effort too in spreading kindness, non-toxic positivity, love and useful information. We can not let it spread havoc into our lives without giving it a good fight. And certainly, we cannot fight it alone. We need each other to fight against it, as cliché as it sounds.

Our thoughts, actions and behaviors affect us interconnectedly. We do not exist in a vacuum but in a society that could break or thrive with the level and type of interconnectedness its people have.

Covid-19 reminds us how divided humankind has become. We have played different sets of dominoes and so the effect we want to have is only as good as how it satisfies our own agenda. We are struggling to fight head-on the greatest enemy of our time because we’re so busy fighting our personal (and sometimes non-existent or imagined) enemies.

As we are forced to spend more time at home, may we spend some time to reflect and think about how we can evolve as better people out of this whole situation — and move forward decently, gracefully and humanely, while we still can.

May we also appreciate the real-life, real-time and personal connections we have lost because of the pandemic — and not take those connections for granted anymore, if we can see “our people” regularly and face-to-face again.

May we also see the value of our interconnection — of how it can make or break a society and how it’s more than necessary for us to take steps on how we can harness it for the common good.

We still have time and we are not alone. We can still do better.

Youth

^{Photo by Jed Villejo on Unsplash}

Time is in your hands
It’s prime to create plans
Give your future a glance
As present delights in your vibrance

The road ahead is unsmooth
Memories you gather now can soothe
You’ll soon be asked to play less
So this time, soak yourself in bliss

Your world will be filled with noise
Paralyze you with the paradox of choice
May you not lose your light within
Let it guide you what path you’ll step in

What Happened To You : Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey

The combined experiences of both Dr. Perry and Oprah in dealing with or talking to people who have been adversely affected by childhood trauma makes this book a poignant, tear-jerking and an eye-opening read.

Reading the book is like watching an interview, with both the authors taking turn in sharing stories, perspectives and realizations about instances when simply asking “What happened to you?” had greatly helped traumatized people to thrive in life.

Dr. Perry posited that the timing of when a child experience developmental trauma (e.g., neglect, poverty, etc.) is a determining factor of how he/she will be adversely affected by or cope with it.

In addition, Dr. Perry also emphasized that the way to effectively deal with people affected by childhood adversities is through a sequential approach: Regulate, Relate and Reason. By this he meant, that a person with a sensitized stress-response because of previous traumatic experiences cannot be dealt with effectively if his/her mental and emotional states are not regulated first.

This book explored the causes, effects and management of developmental trauma through the lens of neuroscience. It also discussed how empathy and connectedness are crucial for trauma-healing and building resilience.

Some of the statements I read that stood out for me are the following:

• “A key part of that sensitized ability to dissociate is to be a people pleaser.”
• “Our major finding is that your history of relational health—your connectedness to family, community, and culture—is more predictive of your mental health than your history of adversity”
• “Humankind, more than any other species, can take the accumulated, distilled experiences of previous generations and pass these inventions, beliefs, and skills to the next generation. This is sociocultural evolution.”
• “Belonging is biology, and disconnection destroys our health. Trauma is disconnecting, and that impacts every system in our body.”
• “All the rational thoughts from our cortex have to get through the emotional filters of the lower brain.”
• “Neglect is as toxic as trauma.”
• “In the wake of trauma, the hardest thing to understand is that nothing and no one can take away the pain. And yet that’s exactly what we desperately want to do—because we are social creatures, subject to emotional contagion, and when we’re around people who are hurting, we hurt, too.”
• “I started to understand that most therapeutic experience—most healing—happens outside of formal therapy. Most healing happens in community.”
• “Just as language fluency requires exposure to lots of conversation and verbal stimulation, “empathic fluency” requires sufficient repetition with caring relational interactions.”
• “Our culture is so “advanced,” and we have such wealth, creativity, and productivity—yet the disparities and inequities in all of our systems continue to marginalize, fragment, and undermine community and cultural cohesion.”
• “Many people have had the experience of feeling “exhausted” after a day of travel, even if all they did was stand in a few lines and sit on a plane. This happens because your brain was continuously monitoring thousands of new stimuli.”
• “How ironic that the cultures our modern world has marginalized are the very cultures with the wisdom to heal our modern woes.”

This book is a good reminder of how we are capable of hurting (intentionally or not) each other because of dismissed, unexplored and unresolved traumas and that we all need each other to transcend individual healing and heal collectively.

It’s definitely an emotional and informational read. I hope you’ll give this book a chance to capture your attention too.

Don’t Give Up On Your Dreams Yet

^{Image by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash}

I had another career crisis that started 2 years ago. I felt trapped doing a job mainly for paying my bills and simply getting by. I felt like I was in a hamster wheel, just going through the motions of a repetitive and seemingly meaningless routine.

I started questioning my previous decisions. While it made sense and felt right to me why I shifted from one career to another (teacher-sales-customer service), my self-doubt began taking me down the rabbit hole.

So then, nothing made sense anymore and I felt like I failed myself, the people I love and those who believe in me.

A friend once told me she’d been in the same place too. It took her almost 3 decades to figure out the path she really want. I vividly remember how she radiated with confidence and happiness when she told me that she finally felt “at home” career-wise. She told me to be patient with myself and to never give up on the dreams I used to have (before I let society or whatnot convinced me to do otherwise) and pursue them one step at a time.

“You’ll eventually get there.” , she said.

To be honest, in my head — my silent response was just “Lucky you!”

Fast forward and some personal circumstances made me hit rock bottom. The account I was working for was dissolved, my mom got Covid and the man whom I thought I was going to marry broke up with me.

The anxiety, hurt and confusion paralyzed me for some time. I did not know how to get up but I know I must.

Covid 19 pandemic magnified to me how fleeting life can be and how privileged I am to still have a shot in life.

And so I decided to take baby steps towards my “dreams” and started applying (while on floating status in my previous job). I also started writing and singing again (my first love) and made innumerable applications to companies I like working for.

Fast forward again and here I am — now a published writer of 2 websites I’m a fan of and back into singing. I also started working for a company that offered me a job that amalgamates the set of skills I gained from my working experience (YES, teaching-sales-customer service combined!).

I never thought I ever will feel “home” career-wise as what my friend shared.

But I did and I hope you did too.

If not, just don’t give up yet. I’m rooting for you!